Interview
with Eric Knapp, author of Cluck- and he is
as much fun to
inteview as he is to read!
We had three reviewers so we had lots of questions too!
Amber's questions:
Why Chickens?
The whole thing started with a dream. No, seriously. Some background
will help you to understand: I work in high-tech, and live on a
farm. The "gentleman farmer" lifestyle is a fantastic one, and
working in the dirt (those who have read the book will know what 'dirt'
is a euphemism for) at the end of a long day at the office is very
healing. However, when office-stress, farms, booze, and horror
movies meet ... well, strange things can happen. In this case, my
wife was away and I was doing what any zombie fan with a squeamish wife
would do under such circumstance. A few hours of gut-munching
movies later, I went to bed. Only I'd left the chickens
out. And there was a full moon. A full moon, to a rooster,
is just about the same thing as a sunrise. So the setting is
complete: rooster perched under bedroom window, cock-a-doodle-doodling
all night long; I'm a bit edgy from the movies; I'm very tired, and
maybe a little drunk (only a little, I promise). I had a dream
where I was being chased around by tiny little inept zombie
chickens. I woke up, ran to the computer, and started writing as
much detail as I could remember.
Would I have ever used chickens without the prodding of deep REM
sleep? Maybe. As an owner of chickens, I get to observe
them on a daily basis. They're fantastic little creatures.
They're determined, yet unfocused. They're proud, although they
are about as far down on the food chain as you can get. They have
definite personalities. Readers of Cluck often think I hate
chickens because I harp on how stupid they are. But the truth is,
I get a kick out of the little guys. It's not my fault that
they're dumber than rocks.
I would also
love to know more about the 2nd part...when will it be out? What will
it be about? Title? I know it is set in the Black Forest but anything
other info you can give away would be nice ;)
The second book, Quack, is in progress, and I'm hoping to have it out
next spring. The sequel brings our favorite characters back -
specifically Armand and his car, and his neurotic mentors at the
Order. The story begins when the Order of Chicken Exorcists gets
a call from the Brotherhood of Ducks -- their equivalent to Armand
disappears, and they want Armand to come to Germany and help solve the
case. I don't want to give too much away, but it involves a
genetically altered monster-duck, Nazi's, and of course your requisite
supporting cast of things that can talk that shouldn't. "Cluck"
was influenced by some classics (Dracula, in particular ... the
original Dracula, by Bram Stoker, which everyone should read), and
Quack is no different. This time around, I'm drawing more from
"Frankenstein" and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" :-)
Oh and I would
love to know about your influences. What music, TV, Movies do you
watch/listen to? Your writing style was a little like Terry Pratchett
mixed with Monty Python!
There was a time in my life when I could recite the entire screenplay
of "The Holy Grail" from memory. Every last word. Should I
be admitting that? ... Later in life I lived in London for a while, and
was hooked on "Murder Most Horrid," which is actually where the title
came from. I also grew very fond of the "Creature Comforts"
animated commercials, which later led to "Wallace & Grommit", and
of course "Chicken Run". I've seen every episode of MASH at least
five times, I have a place in my heart for old-school anime, and am
currently watching Bones, Torchwood (a Dr Who spinoff), and Remington
Steele (which I found on iTunes). So basically, I'm just like
everyone else. Right? Hello? ... I suddenly feel very alone.
As far as writing influences, to hear that my writing style is "a
little like Terry Pratchett" is extremely heartening. Pratchett
is one of my favorite authors because he's fun. I read a lot of
books that are classified as "literature" and there are some authors
who stand out, but when it boils down to it, I want something that's
fun to read. Work is hard. Life is hard. Reading, to
me, is an escape, and I do not want my escape to be hard, too. If
I don't grin at least once within the first few chapters, I'll put a
book down. That doesn't mean I only read comedies: Bradbury
made me grin when he described the bombs falling in "Fahrenheit 451,"
because of the elegance of his prose. Don Quixote,
anyone? If you don't grin while reading that, you need to have
someone check your humerus bone for a fracture.
Barb's questions-
When it is a
movie can I be the voice of the car? (I am a female but maybe you could
tweak the screen play so that the character is in love with Arnold?)
Sure - Women have been playing male voices in animation for years, why
stop now? And (minispoiler) our favorite car does get a love
interest in the sequel. There's also an actual woman in the
sequel.
What is your
writing background? In additon to UNH and London, how did you learn
your craft?
I've been writing since I was very young, and even won two "young
author" awards when I was in elementary school. Not that those
are groundbreaking achievements or anything, but it will be valuable
data for my eventual psychoanalysis. You know, when my friends
and family finally send me off to the white-coats for choosing a
passion that requires lots of work and very little pay ... and for
writing about zombie chickens and monster ducks.
The most important moment in my background occurred in High
School. I had the good fortune to have one of those teachers who
really cared. His name is Mr. Richard Tappan, and he taught me
many valuable lessons. One was that having a knack for writing
didn't eliminate the need for hard work. If it weren't for his
guidance, I probably wouldn't have tested into the high-level English
classes in college, or had the opportunity to study abroad.
However, while my education taught me how to write correctly, there's a
lot more to writing fiction than that. There's a need for basic
creativity, for example, and the determination to write even when you
don't want to, and the willingness to live like a pauper). Life
experience helps, and I'm lucky enough to exist in a forward-streaming
time continuum, so I get more of that every day.
You seem as
driven by setting as plot or characters. (Since the house is a
character I imagine this does make sense too.) In your previous books
was this the same?
Not the same at all. I have only one previous book: Out of Place,
Out of Time. It's very experimental, and it broke a lot of
story-telling mechanics--some for good, some not. OOPOOT is the
transcribed interview of a time traveller, who had disappeared but
returns unexpectedly. The two settings in the story are: a
desolate and largely featureless planet, and a sterile observation
room. Using such stark settings, I denied myself the chance to
fully explore the environment as a character, which is an idea that I
embrace in Cluck. After all, we're all products of our
environment, so why shouldn't that environment get its fair share of
page-time? In Cluck I used the paranormal nature of the story as
a mechanism to actually give many pieces of the environment an actual
voice. That worked well, and most readers have commented
(positively) about it. The car, for example, is everyone's
favorite character, almost unanimously.
It is a full
time job marketing books these days. Do you have a marketing/PR plan?
There are plans, and then there are plans. The first 'plan' that
any writer (especially an independent writer) should have is: keep a
stable day-job. Writing is hard, and getting paid for it is even
harder. If you're an indie, like me, it's even worse: you'll be
denied membership to author- and writing- guilds and organization, many
of which offer benefits that would help (such as group health
care). That means the day job is a necessity: to feed you, fund
the rest of your marketing plan, and provide insurance.
You do need an actual marketing plan as well, of course. For me,
it's focused on word of mouth: mostly because the first part of my plan
(the day job) doesn't provide me with enough disposable income to
invest in a lot of advertising or promotion. Putting book
trailers on YouTube is a relatively new trend, and illustrates how
being active in the social network spaces of the Internet can help
create awareness. Having a blog is important. Participating
in online forums and commenting in other people's blogs is
important. Reviews are incredibly important, as they not only
help to spread the word, but provide an object opinion at the same
time. If the review is good, that opinion translates to a
referral, which directly helps to sell books. Unfortunately for
indies, many reviewers won't touch you with a ten foot pole, never mind
a six inch pen. There's a terrible stigma out there about
"vanity" publications, which is another discussion for another day, but
it means that an independent writer is going to have a more difficult
time getting reviews. I'm lucky, because undead chickens seem to
hit a pressure point that stimulates curiosity while at the same time
weakening judgment and resolve, and I've gotten a decent share of
reviews because of that.
Do you star in
your own videos? How did they come about?
Star in them? Heck: I write, produce, direct, star, operate the
camera, and do all of the editing! Seriously, I have a budget of
-$0.17, which means I do everything myself. The original book
trailer was built as a presentation using Apple's Keynote (which for
the non-Mac users out there is like Powerpoint) and then exported to
video (with a soundtrack that is, ironically, from an old Microsoft
game called "Neverhood"). There's only one video that is live
action: it's an homage to the chase scene in the Evil Dead II, and
though I tried to get someone else to run the camera, schedules kept
getting in the way. I ended up chasing myself around: one arm
thrust behind me, holding my dinky little Flip Video camera. Have
you ever tried to chase yourself? It's not easy, and my shoulders
were sore for three days. I also tripped over a fence and came
close to giving myself a barn-board vasectomy ... ah, what we do for
our art!
Why did you use
Book Surge to publish this?
I published my first book through iUniverse, after extensive research,
and was more-or-less happy with them. Four years later, I started
my research from scratch, figuring (correctly) that a lot would have
changed in the POD world since 2003. With Cluck, I wanted total
control over every aspect of the book: manuscript, design, book block
... everything. There's a myth in self-publishing that you get
total control: you actually get total control over the manuscript, but
it typically ends there. In Cluck, a lot of thought went into the
design, including illustrations, the layout of the book block, the use
of italics, etc. I'm also lucky enough to have a
friend who is an amazing graphic designer, who created the cover and
the interior art, which meant I had to find a company willing to let me
own everything 100%. However, I am not a rich person.
Of the agencies who provide the above flexibility, many of them charge
outrageous amounts of money for that freedom*. Realistically,
you'll only make a few hundred or maybe a few thousand dollars on a
self-published book, so high entry costs are out of the question.
That narrowed the selection to one company: BookSurge, and I am very
happy with that decision.
I would advise any author to do their own research, however.
Things change, and every author and every manuscript is different, with
different requirements.
(You can not
answer this question is you do not want to- no penalty!) With the
current controversy over Amazon not allowing non-Booksurge publishers
to sell books thru Amazon, would you use Book Surge again in the
future?
I could answer this, but it would be a long answer. I'm not
sufficiently informed about the subject, so I'll pass. I know
that I have a non-BookSurge book, and it's still for sale on Amazon ...
they're obviously not blocking everything, although I know writers who
say they're being blocked.
Tom's questions:
Oh- that's right. No questions from Tom. He is still busy laughing and
coming up with bad chicken puns!
Standard Front Street questions:
If you could
give your book to only one person, who would it be and why?
That's easy — in fact, I've already mentioned him by name.
However, I've already given him a copy, so let me adjust your question
a bit and assume you mean that I can give my book to only one more
person. Well ... that's a lot harder to answer. I'd say
Bruce Campbell, because I really want him to star in the movie, not to
mention providing the connections needed to make the movie.
However, I've already gone down that road, and he politely said "no,"
so I'll have to go with Sam Raimi, who might make the movie and then
talk Bruce into staring in it after all. (For the record, I would
like Mr. Campbell to play the roles of both Bobby and Armand, with Barb
doing the voice of the car, of course).
What is
your writing process (was I right about the computer and beer?)
Writing is far too sophisticated a craft to support it on computers and
beer. That's why I use a laptop, and drink gin.
My writing process is one of layers. The first thing I do is
outline the basic story, and then expand that, separating the outline
into a more formal chapter structure. Then I start fleshing
things out. Each draft adds onto the previous one, adding depth
and detail. At some point, I have to force myself to stop, and
then the focus turns to copy-editing. In Cluck, there were seven
"layer" drafts, and then another handful of proof
revisions. Each step requires a lot of ice and limes.
What advice
would you give new writers?
Ask yourself why you want to be a writer.
If the answer involves passion, or the need for a creative outlet, or
the compelling desire to contribute something to this miserable world,
or an incurable lust for gin ... well, then my advice is as
follows: Work hard. Be diligent. Always question what
you do and what you write, and never be too proud or stubborn to change
direction. Expect short-term failures, but strive for long-term
success. Do not give up. When someone insists that there is
only one correct way to approach writing or the publication of your
writing, ignore them. Be creative and find what's best for you
and your story.